


a beginner's guide to hostage negotiation

by captainharkness



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kidnapping, Sarcasm, the string of broken and bruised men left in peggy carter's wake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 05:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13606365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainharkness/pseuds/captainharkness
Summary: In which Peggy, Daniel and Jack are held in a suspect's cellar.





	a beginner's guide to hostage negotiation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redrikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts).



_ 23:36pm _

“Well, ain’t this splendid.”

Daniel rolled his eyes, head thumping back against the wall behind them, “Shut your mouth, Thompson.”

“No, really,” Jack carried on, “I’ve always wanted to be held hostage with you two. A real barrel of laughs, hell, I’ma need stitches from splitting my side after this.”

Peggy elbowed Jack as hard as her restraints would allow, which turned out to be not very hard at all. The handcuffs just smarted on her wrists, and the chains made too much noise as they rattled. It did make her feel slightly better though.

“Your stunning wit is not required, Agent Thompson,” she snapped, “If it is, be sure to know that we will call upon you for your witty comments as needed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said sarcastically from her left, while Daniel groaned on her right.

It was going to be a long night.

-

_ 23:55pm _

According to Jack’s watch, they only had four hours until check in, which meant four and a half hours until the captain got suspicious of their whereabouts and sent people after them. The one bonus of getting chained in someone’s cellar with Jack Thompson was that people generally assumed he was a more than adequate agent, and so treated a legitimate threat to him as exactly that - legitimate. Had it just been Daniel and Peggy, it could have been days before people started asking where they’d gotten to that wasn’t just the general misfortune of a woman and an amputee.

But that still meant five hours in a cellar, chained to the wall, stuck with Daniel Sousa and Jack Thompson. The chains were heavy iron, and the handcuffs thick steel. The restraints were too short for them to lift their hands more than a few inches above their laps, and they’d all been stripped of their weapons when they’d been chained up.

All in all, it was looking a rather gloomy outcome.

Peggy spared another glance at Jack’s watch - three hours and fifty-six minutes.

-

_ 00:14am _

“What about if one of us pretended to be sick-”

“No,” Peggy and Daniel answered immediately.

-

_ 01:00am _

An hour in and between them, they’d tried everything they could think of.

They were handcuffed. Their handcuffs were attached to an iron bar. The bar was chained to the wall. Jack had almost broken his wrist trying to force the handcuffs apart. They were fastened too tight for Peggy to pass her hand through. Daniel’s attempts to loosen the chains had gotten them a barrage of abuse from the armed guard outside. And between them, all they had was a pencil, $3.15 in change and a parking ticket. As far as bright ideas were going, they were all running dry.

Peggy estimated they had a further forty minutes before Jack and Daniel’s irritable bickering took a nasty turn, and then if their captor didn’t kill them, they might kill each other.

“We only have to wait until the office realises we’re gone,” Jack muttered again as Daniel tried the cuffs again, “then they’ll come find us.”

“And when they find us, will that be before or after the person holding us has decided which river to throw our bodies in, Thompson?”

Jack glared at Daniel, “Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine. Bad day?”

Peggy opened her mouth to interject, but Daniel just steamrolled over her, “Actually, Jack, I was having a great day. Had a lovely breakfast at my local diner-”

“Oh, did you now?” Jack said sarcastically, leaning forward in enthusiasm, “Did they cook your eggs right, just like your mama used to make?”

“Yes, they did,” Daniel replied, nodded happily, “Thanks for asking!”

“Boys, really,” Peggy tried to interrupt, but they were on a roll.

“What else? Tell me about your day, honey, because I’d just love to fucking hear it,” There was a giant false smiled plastered all over Jack’s face.

“Oh, you’re just so considerate! Well, I was having a lovely day at work until my coworker told me I had to come along to visit a suspect, to, and I quote, ‘rile him up a bit’,” Daniel bit out, “Peggy, what do you think happens if you ‘rile up’ a millionaire megalomaniac attempting to build a superpowered bomb in his back room?”

Peggy sighed, “I’m sure you’re about to tell me, Daniel.”

“Well, Peggy, apparently, his armed guards takes offense to you flashing your badges around and they lock you in the cellar!”

Peggy shut her eyes and let her head rest of the wall as Jack mocked surprise, “Oh, wow, your powers of deduction are so impressive, Agent Sousa, tell me, any great ideas on getting us  _ out  _ of that situation?”

“Oh, deduce this, Thompson,” Daniel snapped, flipping Jack the bird as viciously as his restraints would allow him.

-

_ 01:22am _

“God, I’m starving.”

Jack and Daniel had managed to take a break in their ongoing argument long enough to complain about something different. Jack hummed in quiet agreement.

“Me too,” he said sadly. Peggy was inclined to sympathise; her stomach was also gurgling, “I’d kill a man for a cheeseburger right now.”

“Me too,” Daniel muttered.

Peggy sighed, “Me three.”

-

_ 01:57am _

“Are you  _ sure  _ you don’t want to hear my plan about Peggy pretending to be sick-”

-

_ 02:25am _

“I’m never going to get the smell of mould out of these trousers,” Jack said, groaning.

“Nevermind your trousers,” Peggy shook her head, “Just run through it again. What do we have?”

Jack took a fortifying breath, “Well, I have a parking ticket and a few coins. Daniel has some more change, and a pencil, and possibly a pencil sharpener, but it’s in his back pocket which he can’t reach.”

“And when you combine that all together?” Peggy asked.

“It means that when our bodies are disposed of, it won’t waste too much money,” Daniel said bluntly.

“For the love of God.”

Three highly skilled agents should have been able to get out of their restraints. Between them, they had more field experience than most of the office put together. Peggy had been in countless spots far tighter than this. Jack was a celebrated veteran. Daniel was one of the most ingenious people she’d ever met. Yet between them, they couldn’t even crack the four pin lock on a set of commercial handcuffs.

Peggy paused.

Four pin.

“Pin,” she said plainly.

Daniel looked at her, “What?”

“Pin,” she repeated, “Oh, I’m so stupid.”

“What-”

“Jack, can you see the thin black pins in my hair? There should be two, just above my temple.”

Jack looked thoroughly confused, but looked anyway, “Well, yeah. What good is that? Your hair looks fine, Carter-”

“I can’t reach them, but I need you to get them out somehow, okay? Then I can pick the locks.”

Daniel’s face slowly split into a wide smile, “Oh, you’re a genius, Peggy.”

Jack furrowed his brow, “How am I supposed to get them if you can’t- Oh, hang on.”

Without warning, he leant towards her. For a split second, Peggy truly thought he was going to kiss her, and she was fully prepared to immediately headbutt him and demand to know what he thought he was doing, but instead, Jack began retrieving the pins from her hair with his teeth. Daniel looked away, staring at the floor. Sighing, Peggy reminded herself that both men were to be held to secrecy over this. There was something extremely bizarre about Jack Thompson doing anything to her with his teeth that could surely never be mentioned again.

Eventually, he dropped both the pins in her open hands, looking rather smug, but Peggy just rolled her eyes and set to opening the locks.

-

_ 02:46am _

“Finally,” Jack groaned, rubbing his wrists.

It had taken a good long while; her hands weren’t exactly in the easiest of positions to pick handcuffs from, and the pins were cheap, and they kept bending. But, they were out, and with a minimum of noise, too. Better than pulling the chains off the wall, at least. Luckily, most of their stuff was on a table in the cellar, including Daniel’s crutch, and all their guns.

Making their way quietly up the stairs to the door to the cellar, Jack walked right up to the door, listening. After a second, he shrugged, and knocked.

Daniel looked ready to punch him there and then, when the door opened, one of the guards stood outside. Jack threw a short punch to his face, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him down the stairs. Daniel and Peggy watched as he tumbled down, landing unconscious at the bottom. When they both looked up at Jack, he shrugged.

“Don’t have time for this, y’know,” he said, “I’m hungry.”

The three of them crept silently through the house. It was lightly guarded, and despite having to go slow to avoid Daniel’s crutch making too much noise, they made it through mostly undetected. A few guards were listening to the radio in the kitchen, unaware of their movements. Only the one stationed outside the front door saw them, and Peggy took a satisfying swing at his jaw with her elbow, grabbing his hair and dragging his face down onto her knee. Daniel grinned as he hit the floor with a  _ thud _ . Even Jack smirked a little.

“Now, that’s hostage negotiation.”

-

_ 03:28am _

Jack leant his head against the payphone, waiting for a reply from the SSR, while Daniel and Peggy stood beside him. Jack’s car was nowhere to be found when they got out the house, probably dumped or set alight long ago, and they’d had to walk half a mile to find a payphone to call for a lift.

“Bet he’s glad we had the change now,” Daniel muttered under his breath, and Peggy snorted.

-

_ 03:43am _

“So,” Captain Dooley said, crossing his arms, “Jack, do you want to explain why you showed up to a suspect’s house without back-up, in the middle of the night, and apparently, without a plan?”

Jack’s mouth opened, bravely stood in the middle of their shamed trio. Peggy wasn’t looking, but she knew the entire night shift was behind them, watching through the window.

“Well, sir, you see-”

“Actually, Captain,” Peggy interrupted, making Jack stare at her like she was insane, “there was no intel to suggest the suspect lived at the address.”  _ Lie _ . “Agent Thompson interrogated someone earlier who lead him to believe that it was the suspect’s accountant.”  _ Lie _ . “Since we know he likes the keep as much of his business as official looking as possible, it was assumed that his accountant would be completely separate from the rest of the operation.”  _ Half-lie. _ They knew the accountant wouldn’t be under armed guard, but they also knew he was based in New Jersey. Peggy knew that because it was in the report of Jack’s interrogation, which was on her desk, where she had left it when she pestered them to let her come along instead of doing filing.

Captain Dooley looked at her carefully, before turning back to Jack, “Is this true, Agent?”

“Absolutely,” Daniel piped up, “Should have been a harmless conversation.”

Jack’s mouth could have been cemented shut for how tight it was closed.

“Agent?” Dooley prompted again.

Jack swallowed, “That’s right, sir.”

“So why the need to bring Sousa along? Surely an agent of your skills can handle a _ harmless conversation _ ?”

Again, Daniel stepped forward, “That was my idea, sir. Just a little good cop, bad cop, y’know? Rattle the old guy’s cage.”

Dooley looked ready to call them out on their bullshit, instead, he just shook his head, “And Carter was part of this how?”

Both Jack and Daniel blinked helplessly, so Peggy stepped forward, “Well, both Agent Thompson and Agent Sousa are very talented agents, captain. They should be allowed to concentrate wholly on their jobs, I only went along to take notes, so as they didn’t need to.”

All three of them stood stock still as the captain watched them with stern eyes. After a minute, he just blew a breath out his cheeks, scrubbing a hand down his face and stepping back behind his desk.

“Finish your reports then go home, agents,” he said, shaking his head, “ _ Now _ .”

-

_ 05:01am _

“And here’s your cheeseburgers, guys,” the waitress said, putting their food in front of them, “How come you’se all ordering dinner at five in the morning anyway?”

Jack was already shovelling his into his mouth, and Daniel just shook his head, smirking.

“Long night,” Peggy said, popping a fry into her mouth.

The waitress gave them all a strange look, but left them to eat their food in companionable silence. 


End file.
